Andarin Weppes

Pretty decent puzzle solving game that involves some gravity manipulation. It was cool to see the visuals shifting as you progress. Definitely disorienting at times. I tried out Andarin Weppes: Pre-Dementia before buying this and it helped me prepare a fair amount for the full game. Expect about 1.5 hours of gameplay for bargain. Unless you're achievement hunting, there probably is not much replay value.

As a puzzle game, this scrapes a thumbs up from me, but as a game with a psychological theme, it would have to be a no. I love puzzle games, and I love games that involve psychology or philosophy. So much so, I have curator pages for both. This might be the first game I have played that I would thumb up/thumb down differently on both pages. The puzzles very much follow a Portal-esque system as you work through levels chamber-by-chamber aiming to get your character back to their bed. Things start simple, but before long the walls become the floor, down is up, and the game twists the levels in a surreal way that means you have to consider where gravity is and how to manipulate the level in the ways you need to. You can mess up, but a rewind feature lets you undo your mess and retry which was really helpful. This is a short game, and will likely only take you a few hours to complete, but there were definitely some smart puzzles here and it was a decent way to kill a bit of time generally. That said, one of my main issues with this game was that it felt like it lacked an impact or any real meaning. The premise of this game is that you are a person with dementia, that is progressively getting worse, but one of the main puzzle mechanics is moving around enchanted books with symbols of the Greek alphabet on them which feels kind of… irrelevant and random? It’s giving “wizard stuck in a mirror dimension”, not “someone with progressive dementia”. The disconnect with the theme is what brings this game down for me. It didn’t feel like it really tied in all that well this its chosen theme. Dementia is a serious topic, and I know there are many different variations. My mother cares for dementia patients, I've heard many stories and know how absolutely devastating it is. There is a chance this game could be linked to some kind of variation of the disease but it keeps that to itself. This game in my eyes just seems to slap the label on it with no real connection to the illness, and doesn't explore the theme in any interesting way (or at all honestly). There is no narrative to add impact, there is no explanation or insight, as far as I could see this game is so vague that it could be associated with anything. The only thing I spotted that I knew was even remotely relevant was the clock becoming distorted as their perception changes. If you have no emotional impact, and we learn nothing, really what is the point in choosing this theme? I honestly think this game would be better if there was no mention of dementia at all. You could just make your own assumptions or ideas on why each day you wake up, the world is a little whackier. In that sense, it would be a more light hearted and fun experience, rather than something with a deep subject and absolutely no substance. That said, I'll stop moaning for a bit. Aesthetically this game has a fairly muted colour palette, which combined with a continuous ticking clock and echoey sound effects, does manage to create an eery and slightly unnerving environment. The music at the beginning of the game really adds to this, which I really enjoyed. As the rooms distort, wind and expand it is effectively setting a purposely strange vibe. This was done well, so it’s definitely a strong point for the game. I would say there is an “amateur” feeling to this game, but that isn’t always a bad thing. I prefer something with interest and a bit of jank over something well polished with nothing going for it. Finally, I just want to mention some “controls” stuff. The game has “Unknown” compatibility with Steam deck, but I can say it worked fine for me. I mapped “R” to LTrigger but that was about it. Generally I did get a bit of lag, and at the start, it wouldn’t always select items as I wanted it to. It felt a bit janky and it was a little bit annoying, but it wasn’t consistent throughout the entire playthrough. I’m honestly not sure if I just got used to the janky control or if it was only an issue in the begin…

Nice short puzzle game centered around gravity manipulation puzzles. The 70s art style and decor is charming. There is no (obvious) story, besides the fact that you seem to have dementia. It was not super challenging, I only struggled a bit with some of the last view levels. My only complaints are that it isn't longer, the game took me about an hour. And that the newly introduced mechanics are almost never combined to make puzzles more challenging or interesting. 7/10!